TMCnet IVR Week in Review

A lot has been going on in the interactive voice response (IVR) space. From new releases to the latest trends and insights, here is all of the most interesting IVR-related news of the week!

This week, Nuance (News - Alert) revealed that it is now offering mobile speech recognition technology on both the iPhone (News - Alert) and iPad for those clinicians who exclusively use an Epic electronic health system. By integrating Nuance’s cloud-based voice recognition with the Haiku and Canto applications, users will be able to better capture clinical information via Epic Haiku for the iPhone and Epic Canto for the iPad.

“Clinicians’ work lives are not conducive to a desk and chair; they need the flexibility of a mobile environment to support their workflow – between exam rooms, clinics and hospitals – and all at a moment’s notice, still, issues surrounding the adoption of mobile technologies remain, including limitations surrounding laborious touch screen keyboards,” Janet Dillione, executive vice president and general manager, Nuance Healthcare, further elaborated in a statement. “With voice-enabled mobile EHR applications, clinicians can enjoy the benefits of the Nuance-powered functionality anytime, anywhere.”

In other news, IVR service provider Plum Voice recently blogged about the importance of IVR server capacity. Regardless of the size or type of business you’re running, one thing remains sure – you’re going to want to prioritize server capacity when developing and designing your IVR system. A huge helper in this area are cloud-based IVR systems, such as that offered by Plum Voice, which hosts applications in the cloud where skilled engineers are able to build, deploy and maintain IVR systems seamlessly. By securing your server capacity, you’re simultaneously securing critical features such as long-term redundancy, fault tolerance, disaster recovery and scalability.

To learn more about the types of companies who are competing in this arena, click here to read the article in full.

Wrapping up this week is a story suggesting some helpful tips for first time buyers of an IVR system. Some things to consider are obviously saving money, the extent of quality and value, seamless operation, and its level of disaster preparedness.

“Picking the right system (and there are many on the market) is a process that undoubtedly takes some planning and research.IVR systems that make the final list for most companies include the ability to function as advertised whenever they are needed,” the article explains. “The vendor should also be able to prove that its testing methods are exacting and capable of turning out quality products. Most companies should also be looking for an IVR system that is capable of more than the old and simple logarithm of the antiquated IVR systems.”

That’s going to do it this week for the latest IVR news. To see what’s new next week, be sure to check back in same time, same place – only here at TMCnet.